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For the moment let us define the nature of the Good as far as
the immediate purpose demands.
The Good is that on which all else depends, towards which all
Existences aspire as to their source and their need, while Itself
is without need, sufficient to Itself, aspiring to no other, the
measure and Term of all, giving out from itself the
Intellectual-Principle and Existence and Soul and Life and all
Intellective-Act.
All until The Good is reached is beautiful; The Good is
beyond-beautiful, beyond the Highest, holding kingly state in the
Intellectual-Kosmos, that sphere constituted by a Principle
wholly unlike what is known as Intelligence in us. Our
intelligence is nourished on the propositions of logic, is
skilled in following discussions, works by reasonings, examines
links of demonstration, and comes to know the world of Being also
by the steps of logical process, having no prior grasp of Reality
but remaining empty, all Intelligence though it be, until it has
put itself to school.
The Intellectual-Principle we are discussing is not of such a
kind: It possesses all: It is all: It is present to all by Its
self-presence: It has all by other means than having, for what It
possesses is still Itself, nor does any particular of all within
It stand apart; for every such particular is the whole and in all
respects all, while yet not confused in the mass but still
distinct, apart to the extent that any participant in the
Intellectual-Principle participates not in the entire as one
thing but in whatsoever lies within its own reach.
And the First Act is the Act of The Good stationary within
Itself, and the First Existence is the self-contained Existence
of The Good; but there is also an Act upon It, that of the
Intellectual-Principle which, as it were, lives about It.
And the Soul, outside, circles around the Intellectual-Principle,
and by gazing upon it, seeing into the depths of It, through It
sees God.
Such is the untroubled, the blissful, life of divine beings, and
Evil has no place in it; if this were all, there would be no Evil
but Good only, the first, the second and the third Good. All,
thus far, is with the King of All, unfailing Cause of Good and
Beauty and controller of all; and what is Good in the second
degree depends upon the Second-Principle and tertiary Good upon
the Third.
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